Tuesday, September 26, 2017

An unsolved case. A tempest of memories. The future’s at stake—and time is running out . . .Gwen Marcey has done a good job keeping the pain of her past boxed up. But as she investigates the case of a missing child in Lapwai, Idaho, details keep surfacing that are eerily similar to her childhood traumas. She doesn’t believe in coincidences. So what’s going on here?No one knows more about the impact of the past than the Nez Perce people of Lapwai. Gwen finds herself an unwelcome visitor to some, making her investigation even more difficult. The questions keep piling up, but answers are slow in coming—and the clock is ticking for a missing little girl. Meanwhile, Gwen’s ex-husband is threatening to take sole custody of their daughter.As Gwen’s past and present collide, she’s in a desperate race for the truth. Because only truth will ensure she still has a future.My review:

I have enjoyed Carrie's books since I read her first one. Forensic artists fascinate me, and the fact that she is one in real life makes her novels all the more interesting and believable. In addition, her main character is far from perfect in more than one way, being a breast cancer survivor with prosthetic breasts..... you don't run onto that in many novels.

All three books that precede this one have been great reads, but this one may be the best yet. I found it to be more suspenseful than the others, and it seemed more was going on in this book. Also in this book, the story is much more personal for the main character.

This was not an easy book to figure out. The plot was intense and intricate, and the suspects abounded, made more difficult by events several years prior. This book kept me on the edge of my seat, and I found myself reading it as fast as I could. I enjoyed the book, and look forward to reading more by this author.

I was given a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

About the author:

Carrie Stuart Parks is an award-winning fine artist and internationally known forensic artist. Along with her husband, Rick, she travels across the US and Canada teaching courses in forensic art to law enforcement as well as civilian participants. She has won numerous awards for career excellence. Carrie is a popular platform speaker, presenting a variety of topics from crime to creativity.

Book description:The story she said he was born to write.Her story. His story. The love story of Joey and Rory.By inviting so many into the final months of Joey’s life as she battled cancer, Joey and Rory Feek captured hearts around the world with how they handled the diagnosis; the inspiring, simple way they chose to live; and how they loved each other every step of the way. But there is far more to the story.“My life is very ordinary,” says Rory. “On the surface, it is not very special. If you looked at it, day to day, it wouldn’t seem like much. But when you look at it in a bigger context—as part of a larger story—you start to see the magic that is on the pages of the book that is my life. And the more you look, the more you see. Or, at least, I do.”In this vulnerable book, he takes us for the first time into his own challenging life story and what it was like growing up in rural America with little money and even less family stability.This is the story of a man searching for meaning and security in a world that offered neither. And it’s the story of a man who finally gives it all to a power higher than himself and soon meets a young woman who will change his heart forever.In This Life I Live, Rory Feek helps us not only to connect more fully to his and Joey’s story but also to our own journeys. He shows what can happen when we are fully open in life’s key moments, whether when meeting our life companion or tackling an unexpected tragedy. He also gives never-before-revealed details on their life together and what he calls “the long goodbye,” the blessing of being able to know that life is going to end and taking advantage of it. Rory shows how we are all actually there already and how we can learn to live that way every day.A gifted man from nowhere and everywhere in search of something to believe in. A young woman from the Midwest with an angelic voice and deep roots that just needed a place to be planted. This is their story. Two hearts that found each other and touched millions of other hearts along the way.My review:I didn't become familiar with Joey and Rory Feek until they made the news because she was dying of cancer. I watched the Facebook posts as she grew weaker and weaker and closer and closer to death. I felt sadness and prayed for those she left behind when she finally slipped the bonds of earth.

I was interested to read their story, so I requested this book. It was an interesting, encouraging, and sad read. Rory tells of how he and Joey met, and of their marriage and music career, and of course about her fight with cancer. I found myself caught up in their story, and impressed by their unwavering faith as they faced the battle of cancer together. I found tears in my eyes many times, yet found myself wishing I had that kind of faith that they exhibited.

The book is definitely worth reading, and I highly recommend it.About the author:

A true renaissance man, Rory Feek is known as one of Nashville’s premiere songwriters, entrepreneurs and out-of-the-box thinkers. He is a world class storyteller that crosses all creative mediums from music and film to books and the internet.

As a blogger, Rory shares his heart and story with the world through his thislifeilive.com blog that has over 2 million Facebook followers. The love story of he and his wife, her recent battle and loss to cancer, and his vignettes of unwavering faith and hope in the face of tragedy inspires millions of readers who follow along with each post.

As a songwriter, Rory’s written multiple number-one songs, including Blake Shelton’s “Some Beach”, Easton Corbin’s “A Little More Country Than That”, and Clay Walker’s “Chain of Love”, and had dozens of other songs he’s written recorded by Kenny Chesney, Randy Travis, Reba, Trisha Yearwood, Waylon Jennings, and many others.

As an artist, Rory is one-half of the Grammy nominated county-music duo Joey+Rory. He and his wife Joey Martin toured the world, sold hundreds of thousands of records, and have their own weekly hit television show that airs all across the country on RFD-TV. Their latest album “Hymns That Are Important To Us” sold 70,000 copies the first week and debuted at number on Billboard album charts.

As a filmmaker, Rory just finished directing his first feature-length film, “Josephine”, an epic love story set during the declining months of the Civil War, with a screenplay that he co-wrote with Aaron Carnahan. Rory has three other screenplays in process. He also writes, shoots and edits their music videos, and is the creator of the television shows and specials in which he and his wife appeared.

He and his 2 year-old daughter Indiana live an hour south of Nashville in an 1870’s farmhouse near their family-owned diner, Marcy Jo’s Mealhouse.

In an effort to get her security consulting business off the ground, Kelsey Allen has been spending a lot of time up in the air, rappelling down buildings and climbing through windows to show business owners their vulnerabilities to thieves. When she is hired to pose as a conservator at the Pink Palace Museum in order to test their security weaknesses after some artifacts go missing, she's ecstatic. But when her investigative focus turns from theft to murder, Kelsey knows she's out of her league--and possibly in the cross hairs. When blast-from-the-past Detective Brad Hollister is called in to investigate, Kelsey may find that he's the biggest security threat yet . . . to her heart. Crackling with romantic tension and laced with intrigue, this suspenseful story from award-winning author Patricia Bradley will keep you guessing--and looking over your shoulder.My review:I first became acquainted with Patricia Bradley's writing when I read and reviewed her Logan Point Series. Those were her first trade paperback books she wrote, and I thoroughly enjoyed all four books in that series.

If possible, this series is even better. The idea of cold cases and the solving of them has intrigued me for quite some time, so I was happy to see a favorite author of mine tackle cold cases in a series. I reviewed the first book, Justice Delayed, and it got the series off to a great roaring start. Justice Buried does not disappoint, and is just as full of suspense, drama, and non stop action as the first book.

Justice Buried brings back Sergeant Brad Hollister back for a more prominent role than he had in the first book, along with new characters and a new mystery. There was nothing to dislike in this book, and I had a difficult time setting the book down to do things that I needed to do besides reading.

The plot was great, and it was not easy to figure out or see where it was going, and there were a few surprises that I definitely didn't see coming.

The idea of trusting God played a part in the lives of the two characters, especially Kelsey as she tried to keep from getting killed from a person she had no clue to their identity.

I read the book in two days, mostly on my work breaks, and loved every minute and page of it. I highly recommend both books in this series, along with Bradley's great Logan Point Series.

I was given a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.About the author:

Patricia Bradley is the author of Shadows of the Past, A Promise to Protect, Gone without a Trace, and Silence in the Dark. Bradley has been a finalist for the Genesis Award, winner of a Daphne du Maurier Award, and winner of a Touched by Love Award. Bradley is cofounder of Aiming for Healthy Families, Inc., and she is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers and Romance Writers of America. Bradley makes her home in Mississippi. Learn more at www.ptbradley.com.

Justice Buried, along with Justice Delayed and the Logan Point Series, is available from Revell Publishing, part of the Baker Publishing Group.

Sunday, September 24, 2017

Book description:What did the president know? And when did she know it?For the members of SEAL Team Six, it was a rare mission ordered by the president, monitored in real time from the Situation Room. The Houthi rebels in Yemen had captured an American journalist and a member of the Saudi royal family. Their executions were scheduled for Easter Sunday. The SEAL team would break them out.But when the mission results in spectacular failure, the finger-pointing goes all the way to the top.Did the president play political games with the lives of U.S. service members?Paige Chambers, a determined young lawyer, has a very personal reason for wanting to know the answer. The case she files will polarize the nation and test the resiliency of the Constitution. The stakes are huge, the alliances shaky, and she will be left to wonder if the saying on the Supreme Court building still holds true.Equal justice under law.It makes a nice motto. But will it work when one of the most powerful people on the planet is also a defendant?My review:

Randy Singer has long been a favorite author of mine, and is better than the better known John Grisham, who writes the same type of books on the secular market.

Although fiction, the book deals with a lot of issues that are relative to today. It wasn't long ago that we had a president and other government officials in a similar situation that the fictional president and other officials were dealing with in this novel.

Slight spoiler alert: I was a bit bummed out at some deaths early on in the book, but I did pretty much see it coming from the first chapters and description of the book. It took me a while to get past that disappointment, but it was still a great book. It was very well written, and Singer's knowledge of both courtroom and law procedure and world events come through loud and clear.

The book had a lot of unpredictable moments, and I had a hard time guessing what would happen next and how judges were going to rule. I liked the characters and plot, and it was easy to get caught up in the story, especially since it is so relative to current events.

I was very impressed with how Singer portrayed Navy Seals, and came away with an even greater appreciation for them and our military in general.

I was bothered by the use of the word "bastards". Tyndale has been one publisher that has been pretty careful about language, and though there are much worse words out there in secular fiction, I felt inserting that one in a Christian novel was unnecessary.

The book comes in at 460 pages, and is a wild ride through the courtrooms of America, the prisons of the middle east, and other areas in Muslim countries. Singer has again penned a great legal thriller that is definitely worth reading, and I enjoyed it a lot.

I was given a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

About the author:

Randy Singer is a critically acclaimed, award-winning author and veteran trial attorney. He has penned more than 10 legal thrillers and was recently a finalist with John Grisham and Michael Connelly for the inaugural Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction sponsored by the University of Alabama School of Law and the ABA Journal. Randy runs his own law practice and has been named to Virginia Business magazine's select list of "Legal Elite" litigation attorneys. In addition to his law practice and writing, Randy serves as teaching pastor for Trinity Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He calls it his "Jekyll and Hyde thing"---part lawyer, part pastor. He also teaches classes in advocacy and civil litigation at Regent Law School and, through his church, is involved with ministry opportunities in India. He and his wife, Rhonda, live in Virginia Beach. They have two grown children. Visit his website at www.randysinger.net.

Thursday, September 21, 2017

Book description:When You Stare Into the Abyss It Also Stares Into YouThe bullet that rips into Cole “Tox” Russell was never meant to kill. It was meant to send a message. Only one man is skilled enough to have taken the shot, a rogue Special Forces operator who vanished months ago.Alec King is perhaps the only person as skilled as Tox, and he’s out for justice. Furious with orders that got his men killed, he intends to make those responsible pay. And he insists Tox join him, believing they are the same breed of soldier.Afraid his old friend could be right, Tox battles a growing darkness within himself as he and his team are forced into another deadly encounter with antiquity. It appears Alec is harnessing the power of a mysterious artifact, a crown that history has linked to some of the worst slaughters in humanity. Racing to stop Alec before his vengeance is unleashed, Tox must fight the monster without becoming one.

My review:

I have been a fan of Ronie Kendig's books ever since I read the first one, a suspense/intrigue novel. She went from that to finding her true niche, writing military/special ops fiction. She is not alone in the Christian fiction market with this genre', but she is hands down the best at writing this genre'. She has proven that time after time with each book she has written, and has done so again with The Crown of Souls. And it also shows she keeps getting better and better.

The Tox Files are different from her other series. In her previous series, she has created a team of guys and focused on a different guy in each novel in that series. In the Tox Files, she has again created a great team of guys, but each book focuses on the same man: Cole Russell, aka Tox. She still does a lot of character development on the other characters in the book, which she always does masterfully, but I have enjoyed the whole series focusing on one character and seeing more character development than normal. And Ronie has created a great and likable, though flawed, character in Cole Russell.

This series has also been different from her others in that she blends history with the modern, going back in history in between what is happening in the here and now.

Crown of Souls is the most intriguing novel in this series so far, and the most gripping. At the center of the story is a very misguided former special ops and friend of Cole's, Alec King. King has seen too much bad left unchecked because of politicians decisions, and is now taking things in his own hands, meting out his form of justice and vengeance. He is borderline insane in his lust for vengeance, and is pushed over the edge by an ancient crown that seems to have the power to corrupt the person wearing it.

Ronie did a great job of portraying the feelings of King, which are echoed in Cole, as he struggles to understand his friend, yet still condemn his actions. I myself have read of the atrocities committed in other countries and how our soldiers are commanded to ignore some things and stand down instead of taking really bad guys out. I can see how a soldier could go over the edge like the fictional Alec King, and how a soldier like Cole could also struggle in that area.

Slight spoiler alert: one interesting part of this series has been the fact that Cole Russell is dead to the world, including his parents. I was curious and eager to see where that would go, and found out in this book.

As to what I thought of the book overall: a word that gets overused, but definitely applies here: awesome. Ronie has outdone herself yet again. The book was a perfect blend of suspense, intrigue, humor, internal conflict, flawed but likable characters, history, and Christianity. I made the mistake of taking this book with me to work and reading on my breaks, and had a very difficult time putting it down to go back to my job. I loved the book, and can't wait to read the next one in the series.

An Army brat, Ronie Kendig grew up in the classic military family, with her father often TDY and her mother holding down the proverbial fort. Their family moved often, which left Ronie attending six schools by the time she’d entered fourth grade. Her only respite and “friends” during this time were the characters she created.

It was no surprise when she married a military veteran—her real-life hero—in June 1990. Married more than twenty years, Ronie and her husband have homeschooled for the last eighteen years. Despite the craziness of life, Ronie finds balance and peace with her faith, family, and retired military working doge in Northern Virginia.

Ronie has a deep love and passion for people, especially hurting people, which is why she pursued and obtained a B.S. in Psychology from Liberty University. Ronie speaks and teaches across the country and mentors other writers.

Since launching onto the publishing scene in 2010, Ronie and her books have hit bestseller lists and garnered awards and critical acclaim, including:

2015 RT Book of the Year Finalist – Firethorn

2015 INSPY Shortlist – Firethorn and Embers

2015 Lime Award Winner – Firethorn

2012 Christy Award Winner – Wolfsbane (Contemporary Romance)

2013 HOLT Medallion Winner – Trinity: Military War Dog (Best Book by a Virginia Author)

Monday, September 11, 2017

Book description:When a person comes to end of their days they will not measure the value of their life based on wins and losses or successes and failures. All of those will begin to blur together into a singular memory called life. What will give someone solace or haunt them until their final breath is what they could have done but did not, who they could have been but never became, the life they could have lived that never came to life. This book is a call and much needed push towards that "most courageous life." By examining the account of Elisha and the King of Israel, McManus demonstrates why it is best to follow God into battle with an empty quiver. He shows the reader why leaving everything on the battle field feels risky but yields the deepest sense of fulfillment.My review:

There is a story in the Old Testament that is the idea behind this book. It is the story of the prophet Elisha having King Joash shoot an arrow, then beat the rest of the arrows on the ground. The king was chastised for not beating the arrows on the ground more times than he did.

The idea behind the book, and the description of the book intrigued me enough to apply to be in the launch team, and the book did not disappoint. Using his scare with cancer and some other events in his life, McManus has written a great book addressing this issue of holding nothing back as we live our lives for Christ.

The book is well written, and is very convicting. I am sure I am not the only person who tends to hold back, and this book is all about doing the complete opposite. I found the book to be a quick and easy read, though one that definitely makes you think.

I was given a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review,.

About the author:

Erwin Raphael McManus is an iconoclast known as a cultural pioneer for his integration of creativity and spirituality. He is an artist, entrepreneur, and cultural thought leader who is also the founder of MOSAIC, a community of faith in Los Angeles California. Known for their innovation, creativity, and artistry, MOSAIC has been named one of the most influential and innovative churches in America.

Engaging such issues as culture, creativity, change, and leadership, Erwin is widely known as a thought-provoking communicator, poet, and wordsmith. His travels have taken him to over 50 countries and he has spoken to over a million people from a wide variety of audiences, from professional sports, Wall Street investors, universities, film studios, and conferences across the world.

McManus is the author of Soul Cravings, Chasing Daylight, and other leading books on spirituality and creativity. His newest book is The Artisan Soul: Crafting your Life into a Work of Art.

Erwin Raphael McManus sees the imagination as the principle vehicle through which we create a better self, a better world, and a better future. He argues that creativity is both uniquely human and the essence of human uniqueness. Creativity, McManus contends, is a natural expression of our spirituality. When we are most fully alive we create out of love all that is good and beautiful and true.

Erwin has a BA in psychology from UNC Chapel Hill, a Masters of Divinity from Southwestern Theological Seminary, and a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Southeastern University.

The Last Arrow: Save Nothing for the Next Life is available from Waterbrook/Multnomah Publishing.

I review books for:

Note to authors: I do review for some publishers, but if you are interested in getting a book reviewed, doing a email review, or even a guest blog, contact me. I am primarily interested in Christian fiction, and other types of Christian books. I also like to host giveaways.

I do prefer physical copies, as I never read e-books.

Also interested in reviewing other items. Email: marcus802001(at)yahoo(dot)com

About Me

I live in Lisbon, Ohio. I am single, and am uncle to the six greatest kids in the world. I enjoy blogging about Christian fiction, my family, Christianity, and the events of my life.
I deal personally with same-sex attraction, but am living according to God's Word with His help.
If you are an author, particularly Christian fiction, and need someone to review your book, give me a holler.